While there may be some intellectual-property aspects to the deal, Cisco is focused on Skyport's talent, wrote Eric Hanselman, chief analyst at 451 Research.

"Talent at the intersection of virtualization, security and networking is precious," he noted.

The foundation of Skyport's technology depends on specialized hardware that could be hard to integrate into Cisco's Hyperflex hyperconverged product line, Hanselman said. "The more likely technology legacy is the cloud-based security management system and the virtualization integration that Skyport built," he wrote.